


Lauren the 'Librarian'

by ToothPasteCanyon (DannyFenton123)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 12:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16197437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyFenton123/pseuds/ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: None of this was part of the plan. Not the library, not the demon, not the stupid kid, and definitely not the infamy.2018 Transcendence AU Ficathon Entry.





	Lauren the 'Librarian'

                So… the warding business was a little slow.

                Lauren sat in her motel room, listening to the AC whirr above her. The TV was set to one of those weird mattress commercials that only came on past midnight, and it cast a harsh light on the room that made her squint.

                 A little slow, yeah. But it’d pick up soon. Now she was in New San Francisco. Big city, lots of dead people to come back and haunt new homeowners. New homeowners get freaked out, new homeowners call her, she gets rid of them, they pay her, and everything, works out, _fine_.

                “HEY YOU!” On the TV, a wide-eyed man in an ill-fitting suit stabbed a finger at her. “Does your mattress SUCK as much as YOUR LIFE? Do YOU wake up EVERY DAY WISHING it was your last?”

Lauren shifted a little on the stiff bed, patted the covers for that damn remote… it was probably on the table. She didn’t care enough to get up.

                “Well fear no more with PHIL’S AMAZING MAAAAATTRESSES! BACK PAIN? CURED! INSOMNIA? CURED! CRUSHING HOPELESSNESS IN THE STRUGGLE FOR FULFILLMENT IN AN UNCARING MODERN SOCIETY? HOLY F***ING MACARONI THAT’S CURED! PHIL’S AMAZING MAAAAAAAATTRESSES DOES IT ALL, PHIL’S AMAZING MAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-“

                Or maybe she did. Lauren stepped back as the screen went dark, and tossed the remote back onto the bed. It bounced once and fell off the side.

                “Of, for the love of-! Ugh. Whatever.” Lauren sat back down on the bed, hearing the springs creak.

                This was fine. Everything was fine. Business was slow, but it was going to pick up, and everything was going to get better.

                Some good times were certainly overdue.

 

* * *

 

                “This is so much better.” Lauren finished taping ‘ARTS AND RECREATION’ on the side of a bookshelf. “Now I don’t have to memorise that dumb dewey decathlon measurement.”

                “You mean the Dewey Decimal System.”

                “Whatever, Alcor.” She waved a hand at the man standing behind her. “Go sort out the books down in the demonology section. Bunch of students left half the section on the tables.”

                Alcor’s eyes twinkled in amusement. “I’m on it, boss.”

                “Cool. Also I’m gonna keep pretending you’re not being snarky about that boss thing.”

                “What, me? Snarky? Nooo.”

                “I know, it’s unbelievable. Now shut your yap and get to work before I stick a label on you. ‘Lazy demon’ outta do it.”

                Lauren had her back to Alcor, so she didn’t catch the nostalgic smile that flickered across his face for the briefest moment. “Yes, boss.”

                He turned and walked away. Lauren attached one last label to the shelf and stood back, admiring her work. This was going to make everything so much easier.

                She turned and headed towards the front desk, where the trolley of returned books was waiting to be wheeled out. Lauren heaved it out of its corner and pulled it over to the shelves, where she parked it and picked up the first book. Alright, _Magic and the Mindscape_ by A. Jaghorn was under Natural Sciences… there. _Princess Pony Unicorn_ was probably not a scientific book on unicorns, so it would go under Social Sciences.

                _Warding: A Lost Art_. Lauren stared at the cover for a moment before filing it away in Technology. She was surprised by how natural this felt now; if you told the Lauren of six months ago that she was going to be a librarian, she would not have believed you.

                It was an unlikely series of events, that much was true. She woke up one morning to an official-looking letter on her doorstep. After getting over the ‘oh my god what bill haven’t I paid’ panic, she found it was from a lawyer. Her great-grandfather had passed away, and in his will he left the Stanley Pines Memorial Library to her.

                Lauren might have met him once, when she was very young. The library was just as mystifying. Apparently it was this old family business dating back to the pre-Transcendence era, and that was kind of cool, but… a library? She didn’t know the first thing about running a library.

Honestly, if she hadn’t been in such a bad place, she’d never have taken it on. But it came with a house and a warm bed and a TV with actual channels, and there was no way she was saying no to that.

                And it came with… an employee. Alcor was an interesting sort of guy, and that was before he decided to drop the ‘I’m a demon and you have the soul of this guy I knew’ bombshell. Bit of a curveball, but whatever. If an all-powerful demon felt like sorting out shelves and manning the front desk, she certainly wasn’t going to complain.

                So, yeah. It was all still a bit strange, but six months in and things were looking up. Life was actually pretty good, you know? Better than it had been for a while.

                She picked up another book from the trolley.

                _Twin Souls_. Lauren cracked a smile as she read the title. This must be a new donation; this particular book never lasted long on the shelves when Alcor was sorting them.

                She started to put it away, but then she paused as an idea hit her. Lauren pulled out her pocket knife and quickly etched a protection ward into the back page before placing it in the Biography section. There was no way such a crude ward would protect it for any amount of time, but it’d let him know it was intentional.

                With a snicker, Lauren returned to her work.

               

* * *

 

                Lauren was filling the register when there came a knock at the door. She looked up, and raised an eyebrow when it happened again.

                “We’re closed!” The knocking came again, louder. Lauren rolled her eyes and put the cash away. “Fine. I’m coming, I’m coming!”

                She skipped across the room and opened the door. At first, she thought it had been a prank; there was nobody at her eye level. But she heard a sound, and when she looked down she saw a little kid with pale white hair smiling up at her. She was holding a clipboard, which instantly caught her attention.

                “Hey, is this for Girl Scout cookies? I didn’t know the town did these!”

                The kid’s smile instantly soured. “I’m not a Girl Scout, you stupid idiot!”

                “Oh. Well then, we’re closed. Come back tomorrow, or never.”

                “Wait-!”

                Lauren shut the door, and made a face. Now she kind of wanted Girl Scout cookies. She was pretty sure she had regular cookies in the fridge, as long as Alcor hadn’t gone and eaten them all again…

                _Knock, knock, knock_.

                Oh, come on, seriously? She opened the door and glared down at the girl with the clipboard.

                “Hey kid, the stupid idiot library is closed.”

                “I need-“

                “If you’ve got some fine to pay or whatever, it’ll still be here in the morning.”

                “What? I don’t have any fines!”

                “What’s your name?”

                “It’s Ray Gleeful, and I-“

                “Well, you’ve got fines now.”

                “ _What_?! You can’t- I can’t believe this!” The little kid was almost shaking in rage. “ _I_ am here to conduct an _interview_!”

                Lauren raised an eyebrow. “An interview?”

                “Yes! You’re the newest owner of the Pines Library, aren’t you?”

                “Yeah. So?”

                Ray rolled her eyes, as if she couldn’t believe she had to explain this. “So, you’re kind of important around here. And my school wants us to find out about the Pines Library, so I’m gonna interview you!”

                “Hmm… you didn’t phrase it like a question, but my answer is no.”

                “What? Why?”

                “’Cuz you have a million dollars in outstanding library fines.”

                “No I don’t!”

                “Yeah you do.”

                “No, I don’t!”

                “Yeah, you do.”

                “No, I don’t!” She stabbed a finger at Lauren. “You’re just making stuff up because you don’t feel like talking to me!”

                “Yeah, I am. That’s the price of calling me a stupid idiot and then expecting me to put up with your crap. Get lost, kid.”

                Then Lauren stepped back and slammed the door in her face. She heard the kid start knocking again, so she locked it and walked back to the register.

Alcor stuck his head through the doorway. “What was that? Someone at the door?”

“Don’t answer it. It was just some stupid kid. What’s her name- Ray Gleeful?”

“Ah.” A knowing look spread across his face. “I know the Gleefuls.”

                “Of course you do. You know ‘lots of things’, don’t you?”

                Alcor chuckled. “You’ve got that right.”

                Lauren strode over to the window, where she could see Ray’s furious face pressed up to the glass. “Anyway,” She dropped the blinds. “You wouldn’t happen to have some Girl Scout cookies, would you?”

 

* * *

 

                Lauren had a feeling her first encounter with Ray Gleeful wouldn’t be her last, but it came a lot sooner than she expected. Namely, six o’clock in the morning the next day, just as she was about to open up.

                She could see the kid sitting out on the parking lot, trying to juggle with an empty soda bottle. As she watched, the bottle slipped out of Ray’s hand and smashed on the tarmac. Ray jumped, looked around and, seeing she was alone, swept the shards underneath Lauren’s car. Then she pulled out her phone and tried juggling that.

                Lauren took a long drink of her coffee. “It’s too early for this shit, Alcor.”

                “I can send her off if you like.”

                “Thanks, but I’m not siccing a demon on some eight year old kid.”

                “I’m not gonna-!”

                “ _I know_. I know you’d be fine, okay? But it still feels like it’s crossing a line. I’ll handle this.”

                She chugged down the last of her coffee and slammed the mug on the table. Then she straightened her shirt and moved to unlock the door.

                Ray was at the door in a flash. “Ms Pines! Ms Pines!”

                “Yeah, what?”

                “I’m ready to do the interview now!”

                “Again, not a question, but the answer is no.”

                 “Wait!” She stuck her hands up. “Okay, okay, I know we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, so I want to start over!”

                Lauren raised an eyebrow. This ought to be good.

                “Look, I happen to be top of my class, in school, so when they assigned the Pines library project, I wanted to go above and beyond and get a real picture of what it’s like here. You know, everyone else is just gonna copy it off of Wikipedia or something. They won’t even come here.” The small child rolled her eyes. “Kids these days. They’re all just zombies glued to their magiorbs. Nobody has any proper respect for history these days – you know back in pre-Transcendence times, my ancestor Gideon Gleeful was friends with the original founder of the library, Mabel Pines? It’s true!”

                “Who?”

                “Who? Mabel Pines, or Gideon?” Her jaw dropped at Lauren’s blank expression. “Wait, you don’t know who they are? I can’t believe you! What kind of Pines are you supposed to be, anyway?”

                Lauren shrugged. “Look, kid, I don’t know about any of that. I’m not much good with history, so you should find someone else to interview.”

                “But you’re still the one in charge of the Pines Library, right?”

                “Yeah.”

                She brought up her clipboard. “So, I’m going to interview you!”

                “You know, you really have a problem with the question thing, right? Just because you say something doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

                Ray blinked. “You’re not going to let me interview you?”

                “No.”

                “Why?

                Lauren sighed. “Look, kid, I appreciate your - attempt? – at an apology, but I’m not interested.”

                “Why?”

                “I’m not that interesting, alright? Clearly this library’s got a whole lot more history than me, so why don’t you go look that stuff up online and do your little report and leave me alone?”

                “But, but-“ Ray scowled. “Well, I wasted so much time hanging around here for nothing then! What’s the _point_ of being nice to you if you’re just gonna say no to me?”

                “Yeesh. That’s… uh, that’s a revealing statement.” She started to close the door. “Well, I’m going now. Don’t come back!”

                “Wait-!“ The door slammed in Ray’s face, and she pounded it until her knuckles were sore. When it was clear Lauren wasn’t going to open it again, she stepped back, quivering with rage.

                “Oh, Pines, you don’t know who you’re messing with. Nobody says no to me! I will get that interview, just you wait.” A smile snaked across her face. “Just you wait.”


End file.
